講道與書信 第 188 章 第 13/15 段

Of the three prefaces of the Roman Pontifical which Quesnel, noting that they bear the style of Leo, appended to his Sermons, two have been edited in the aforesaid Sacramentary. But the third, which we in no way doubt would be found in that same [Sacramentary] if that part were not lacking which pertains to the reconciliation of penitents in the season of Lent, we here subjoin. Likewise the preface Exsultet in the blessing of the paschal candle would have to be added, if we thought it probable that this is truly Leo's (as it seemed to some, cited by Mabillon in his note on the Gothic Missal).

But since its style is utterly foreign to Leo's, and no manuscripts, so far as we know, favor this opinion, we here append only the preface—or rather the allocution of the archdeacon for the reconciliation of penitents, which breathes of Leo—our Sacramentary not assisting, as drawn from the older Gelasian codex, where it is more complete and fuller. It is at hand, O venerable pontiff, the acceptable time, the day of divine propitiation and of human salvation, on which death received its destruction, and life its eternal beginning: when in the vineyard of the Lord of Sabaoth the planting of new things must be so done that the accursedness of the old may be purged away.

For although no time is void of the riches of God's goodness and loving-kindness, yet now is both the remission of sins more ample through indulgence, and the reception of the reborn more copious through grace. We are increased by those to be regenerated, we grow by those returning. The waters wash, the tears wash. Hence joy over the reception of the called, hence gladness over the absolution of penitents. Hence it is that Your suppliant, after he had fallen into various forms of crimes by neglect of the heavenly commandments and by transgression of praiseworthy morals, humbled and prostrate, cries out to God with the prophetic voice, saying: I have sinned, I have done wickedly, I have committed iniquity; have mercy on me, O Lord.

Receiving with no idle ear the evangelic voice, 'Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted,' he ate, as it is written, the bread of sorrow; he watered his couch with tears; he afflicted his heart with grief, his body with fastings, that his soul might recover the health it had lost. There is therefore one sole support of penitence, which both profits individuals and succors all in common. Here, then, while he is stirred up to the act of repentance by so great examples, under the gaze of the groaning Church, O venerable pontiff, he protests and says: I acknowledge my iniquities, and my sin is ever before me. Turn away Your face from my sins, O Lord, and blot out all my iniquities.

Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me with a princely spirit. As he thus supplicates, and with an afflicted heart begs the mercy of God, restore in him, O apostolic pontiff, whatever has been corrupted by the devil's rending; and by the patronage of the merits of your prayers, through the grace of divine reconciliation, make the man near to God, that he who before was displeasing in his own perversities may then rejoice that he is pleasing to the Lord in the land of the living, with the author of his death vanquished. Through the Lord. — These books Quesnel published inscribed with the name of Leo.

But why we thought they should be taken away from that same pontiff and relegated to an appendix will be clear from the observations subjoined to Quesnel's second dissertation, in which we shall bring his arguments to the reckoning. These same books were first published among the Works of St. Ambrose, from a codex which bore the name of Ambrose, and which not only swarmed with many errors, but also lacked that long testimony which Pope St. Gelasius had recited from this work. John Sotel, in the Louvain edition of the year 1565, inserted these books among the Works of St. Prosper of Aquitaine, on the authority of three manuscript copies of St. Martin of Louvain, of Cambron, and of Bonefia, which prefix the name of Prosper to them;

but he emended nothing in the text, and supplied nothing. In the Douai edition of the Works of St. Prosper of the year 1576, however, from the same Cambron codex, John Olivarius did indeed supply a notable passage that was lacking, but affixing the variants to the margin, he for the most part left the text untouched. Quesnel, besides these variants of the Cambron manuscript, used another codex, the Thuanean, inscribed, as we believe from other sources, with the name of Prosper, and with the help of these two copies emended several errors in the text. The most recent Parisian editor of St. Prosper, of the year 1741, employed a third codex, the Joliensian, of better note, to which likewise Prosper is inscribed; and from it he restored not a few passages. 2. We chiefly collated three Vatican manuscript books.

The first is the Vatican Reginensis codex 295, on parchment, in quarto, of about the eleventh century, where the books are ascribed to Prosper with this title: 'Here begins the first book of Prosper on the calling of all nations.' This codex, moreover, has a note prefixed at the front: 'Book of St. Peter and St. Rodobert of the Cell'; which indicates the library to which this same codex once belonged. The second is Vatican 268, likewise on parchment, in folio, of about the same century, which adjudges the work to Ambrose. The third is Vatican 262, in quarto, of the fifteenth century, which displays the name of Prosper at the front. Although this codex is more recent, yet for the most part it furnished the sounder readings, and also that passage which, sought in vain in the others, we restored from this single manuscript.

Lest we be too prolix in citing these codices, we shall indicate the first by the Arabic numeral 1, the second by the numeral 2, the third by the numeral 3, thus: Vat. 1, 2, or 3. Besides these there are three other codices: Vatican Palatinus 236 of the ninth or tenth century, Vatican 558 of the eleventh century, and 559 of the fifteenth century, which likewise prefix Prosper; and one, Vatican 281 of the fourteenth century, which prefixes Ambrose. 3. The examination of these codices suggests two things to be observed, which will perhaps not be useless for conjecturing the author. First, it is false that the Vatican codices which prefix Ambrose are older than those inscribed with the name of Prosper. For neither is Vatican 268 of nine hundred years, but is recognized as written about the eleventh century; whereas the Palatine codex...

...may be earlier by one or even another century; as also is that copy which Hincmar possessed, for in several places he cited this work under the name of Prosper. But the codices Vatican Reginensis 293 and Vatican 558 are of the same century as the one which bears the heading of Ambrose. Secondly, of the codices hitherto employed only three present Ambrose, namely Vatican 268 and 281, and also that one from which these books first appeared under the name of Ambrose; and all these are corrupted by equally many errors, and, just as in that long testimony which in chapter 7 of Book I was restored from the manuscripts that prefix Prosper, they all likewise lack it; so that they are recognized to be derived from one and the same exemplar, alike corrupt and abridged.

But eight codices are marked with the name of Prosper — the Cameronensis, the Thuaneus, the Joliensis, Palatine 236, Vatican Reginensis 293, Vatican 262, 558 and 559 — and all of these are much more correct, nor do they omit that notable testimony. 4. Now from these two observations it may be permitted to draw and set forth a certain conjecture useful for discerning the author. Since all the codices that mark Ambrose proceed, equally mangled and corrupted, from a single faulty exemplar, it could have happened through the carelessness or arbitrary decision of that first copyist either that he changed into Ambrose the name of Prosper, which stood in the older manuscripts, or (what is more probable, since it has more frequently befallen him in other works) that he placed the books without the author's name among the Works of Ambrose;

whence later copyists took occasion to ascribe them to Ambrose — to whom, however, they certainly cannot be assigned, as Quesnel plainly showed in his second dissertation, nor do we know them to have been ascribed to him in more ancient times and manuscripts. On the contrary, since all the codices presenting Prosper are more correct and not so abridged, and some even more ancient, it is evident that these proceeded from a most ancient and more faithful original, upon which likewise the name of Prosper was inscribed. Hence, then, may one not conjecture that some Prosper truly is the author of these books, although who that Prosper was remains unknown? In this way indeed nearly everything is reconciled. For the difficulties objected by Quesnel in his dissertation

the second, against the opinions that press Prosper forward, prove only this: that the author of these books is not Prosper of Aquitaine. But if we grant that there was some other Prosper, otherwise unknown, who lived in Leo's age and before Gelasius, those objections do nothing to hinder it; and in this way the reliability of the more ancient, more numerous, and more correct exemplars is left unimpaired. By a similar path too the authority of Cassiodorus can be reconciled, who assigned the books On the Promises and Predictions of God to Prosper. This would have happened by an error if it were necessary to understand Prosper of Aquitaine; for the author of those books is perceived to be an African. But Cassiodorus in two passages consistently calls him Prosper; his native land,

however, he does not indicate; and since he himself is nearly contemporary with this author, he is not too readily to be pronounced deceived in the name, since another Prosper can be understood by it: but rather those are to be believed deceived, through no slight prejudgment, who, presuming that Prosper of Aquitaine was the one named by Cassiodorus, thought that his twofold testimony must be rejected and marked as an error. Why then could not the same have happened in our case? 5. Nor does the text of Pope Gelasius stand in the way, since he could have called him 'Master of the Church' by way of honor — one who even then in the manuscripts was named Prosper; for we are not thereby compelled to say that these books were published without the author's name;

which, however, some thought must be inferred from the mere citation of Gelasius, in which the name is omitted. 6. Nor let it disturb us what certain persons add: that the codices could so have erred in attributing these books to Prosper, just as they erred in claiming for the same author the books On the Contemplative Life, which have Julianus Pomerius as their author. For other codices have been found, and are praised by the most recent editor of Prosper, which claim these books for Julianus Pomerius; of which kind is one, Vatican Reginensis 291 of the eleventh century, and another, the Ambrosian codex, a thousand years old, indicated by Muratori in volume III of Italian Antiquities, page 847, in which, while excerpts from ancient writers are transcribed, one from chapter 21 of Book II On the Contemplative Life is cited thus:

'Here begins from the third book (one should read "second," unless another division had prevailed) of Pomerius to Julianus.' On the contrary, no codices could hitherto be found which attribute the books On the Calling [of the Nations] to any but Prosper or Ambrose; and therefore, since they cannot be Ambrose's, Prosper remains — whom, since we are not compelled to understand as the Aquitanian (for no codex calls him the Aquitanian), we may believe to be simply Prosper, even though who he was is not clear. This conjecture, whatever its worth, we submit to the judgment of readers, especially of those who will be able to inspect and collate other codices. CHAPTER I. How great was the nobility and virtue of Demetrias.

— Since you understand, piously and wisely, that the lofty purpose of your most splendid sanctity rests upon the foundations of humility, you stoop, O holy Virgin Demetrias, even to this condescension of your dignity, that you require your advances to be aided even by my pen. This I would in every way refuse, considering the slenderness of my ability, nor would I presume to apply my little exhortations to a mind so mature and learned, did I not conceive confidence of accomplishing what is commanded from Him who commands, and did I not trust that by your merits and prayers it shall be granted that water may spring up in the desert (Ps. 106:33), and rivers become in a dry land (Ps. 104:41; Isa. 43:19).

Whence you must labor together with me, so that He who gives wisdom to little ones and makes the tongues of the dumb eloquent (Wisd. 10:21) may bid to flow forth from the dryness of my heart something which your worthiness may fittingly draw. What matter, then, shall be given to my pen, and whence shall a theme of speaking with you be taken? If I should undertake to write your praises, and unfold the succession of your ancestors, which is greatly illustrated through you, I think I might perhaps seem burdensome and shameless — either forcing upon you by flattery the temptation of human glory, or presuming that my talent could be equal to the extolling of yourself and your kindred.

But if I should discourse on commending the good of virginity, the intimation of its purpose will now be a heavenly one — a purpose which you chose from the first flower of your youth without human exhortations, and about which, at its very beginnings, many who then were preeminent in the Church were rightly not silent.

For it was truly marvelous, and to be numbered among the chief examples of divine grace, that the virgin Anicia — raised above every peak of consular nobility, from whose fruitfulness a posterity destined to answer to the wishes both of her family and of her country was awaited by her forefathers and ancestors — with mind suddenly changed, out of desire for heavenly nuptials, declined a mortal marriage; and, that you might consecrate your whole lineage also with the title of this virtue, from the first stock of your race you pledged yourself a perpetual virgin to the Son of the Virgin.

Reasonably, therefore, most learned men incited by their exhortations that age of yours and those beginnings; and although the supreme Husbandman was furnishing to His planting vigorous increases for your progress, yet the fellow-workers of God's grace applied at the opportune moment their pious cultivation, so that the tender shoot might receive the strength of fortitude, and the tree of your purpose might bring forth fruits worthy of its nobility. But what place shall there be for our pages?

And after the most ornate writings of eminent masters, what usefulness will you find in this discourse which you have deigned to enjoin, unless perhaps — because both by their teachings and by your own efforts habitual practice advances to the loftier degrees of virtue — I should admonish you to beware of exaltation, and by faithful suggestion commend to you the sincerity of humility, that in all the actions in which you are rightly conscious of yourself, you may never dare to be secure. CHAPTER II. That true virtues must be distinguished from false. — Concerning this good, then, so most fitting and most wholesome for you, which the Lord has bestowed, let us discourse, so that not only its visible things but also its hidden things may be laid open to our inspection.

For manifold is the quality of this virtue; and although in its outward aspects it is beautiful, yet in its inmost parts it is far more comely and far more resplendent, where there is nothing dark, nothing turbid, nothing restless: for great peace have they that love the law of God, and there is no stumbling-block to them (Ps. 118:165). But being about to approach the contemplation of blessed humility, let us repel all that abjectness which depresses idle and inconstant souls; nor let the general name so exclude us from the judgment of discernment that we think all humble persons in whatever manner to be praiseworthy. For necessity for the most part imitates the will, and the form of sloth differs little from the image of modesty. But one thing is what weighs down, another what exercises;

nor does the toil of unavoidable misery come to the same end as the fortitude of sought-for patience. There is one word for poverty, but not one mind among the poor: for it is not the same thing to rejoice over riches well spent as either to groan over what was not acquired, or to grieve over what was lost. Of fear too, by which God is dreaded, there is no distinction in the name; but it is one thing to fear because you have sinned, another to fear lest you sin; and there is dread of punishment, here anxiety for reward. For on this account it is said of that servile fear that perfect charity casts out fear (1 John 4:18); but of this liberal fear: The fear of the Lord is holy, enduring for ever and ever (Ps. 18:10).

Having therefore set aside that appearance of humility which is wholly without fruit, let us weigh only voluntary affections, which, even if they are found unequal in degrees of merit, are nevertheless not at variance with the virtue itself. CHAPTER III. The first good of humility: to preserve love and concord among men. — The first principle of humility, then, is engaged in the duties of the common life, by which divine clemency is reconciled to it, and human society is knit together. For it avails much to strengthen love, when, according to the apostolic teaching, men prevent one another in honor (Rom. 12:10), and, esteeming each the other his superior, being subject they love to serve, and being set over others they know not how to be puffed up;

when the poor man does not hesitate to prefer the rich man to himself, and the rich man rejoices to make the poor man his equal; when the exalted are not proud of the splendor of their lineage, and the poor are not lifted up by the sharing of a common nature; when, in short, no more is granted to great wealth than to good morals, nor is the bedizened power of the wicked reckoned greater than the dishonored justice of the upright. From this equal and modest right of concord — in which there is no contest over higher rank, and neither does one's own prosperity puff up nor another's inflame with envy — many advance beautifully and marvelously to that fortitude of humility, which both places itself outside all dignity, and prefers to be fit for receiving injuries rather than apt for repelling them;

that there may be fulfilled what the Lord says: To him who wishes to contend with you in judgment and to take away your tunic, give up also your cloak; and whoever shall compel you to go one thousand paces, go with him another two (Matt. 5:40). And that too which the Apostle teaches, saying: Why do you not rather accept injury? Why do you not rather suffer fraud (1 Cor. 6:7)? For such persons approach greatly to the imitation of our very Lord and Savior; who, though He was rich, became poor (2 Cor. 8:9); and when He was reviled, reviled not; and to him who struck Him He uttered no threats (1 Pet. 2:23); and since He had said: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you (Matt. 5:44);

so that He might confirm such benevolence by His example, He Himself prayed for those by whom He was being crucified. CHAPTER IV. That the truly humble man disdains the glory and wealth of the world. — Those, therefore, who faithfully and knowingly understand by what work they were saved and at what price they were redeemed, do not wish to be of the wise of this world, do not wish to be of its strong: since, as the Apostle says, God has chosen the foolish things of the world, that He may confound the wise; and God has chosen the weak things of the world, that He may confound the strong; and the ignoble things of the world and the contemptible God has chosen, and the things that are not, that He might destroy the things that are; that no flesh should glory in His sight (1 Cor. 1:27):

that is, that no one may think to please God through the wisdom of this world, which is wholly carnal, and is destroyed together with all its vanity by true wisdom: for the Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain (Ps. 93:11). Since therefore the disciples of truth flee human glory, and desist from the love of temporal things, that they may savor the things of God, not the things of men, they advance in their senses, they do not fail; nor do they lose the vigor of their heart, but receive the light of a most excellent understanding; living indeed in this world, yet leaving behind all the din of the world, that they may redeem the time, because the days are evil (Eph. 5:16).

But at what price is the repose of this present time more fittingly purchased, than that to the world itself all riches, all dignities, and the materials of all covetings should be poured back, and by a holy and blessed commerce Christian liberty should be bought — that we may become children of God, rich out of poverty, strong out of patience, exalted out of humility? For it is not, as the lovers of this age suppose, the mark of a depraved heart or of a sluggish spirit to spurn earthly wealth, to disdain fleeting honors, and not to seek glory there where the sinner is praised in the desires of his soul, and he who does iniquity is blessed (Ps. 9:23). Whence, if it be truly understood,

this contempt of present things — considering to what it tends and what it covets — for such minds there will be found nothing more upright, nothing more erect; for by most sacred desires they transcend all things, and reach out not to any creature, however powerful and wonderful, but to the very Creator of all things visible and invisible; to draw near to whom is to grow bright, whom to fear is to rejoice, whom to serve is to reign. CHAPTER V. That not only the poor but also the rich can be adorned with Christian humility. — But this virtue, which, careless of temporal abundance and power, strives toward eternal life by a narrow and steep way, ought not to admit only voluntary poor into the fellowship of Christian humility,

while excluding from the fellowship of this good those who possess ample estates, magnificent patrimonies, and many resources in this age: since in the people of God there have always existed many who used riches well, nor may it in any way be either said or thought that Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, whose God the Lord declared Himself to be (Exod. 3:6), for this reason lacked true humility, because they were not poor. Or that the most sacred man Melchizedek, bearing the figure of our Lord and Savior (Heb. 7:3), was not perfectly humble, because he was eminent both in priesthood and in kingship. Or that of blessed Job, concerning whom God pronounces, saying:

Have you not considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a simple and upright man, and one fearing God, and departing from evil (Job 2:3)? — that this virtue was lacking to him, because there were (as it is written) in his possession seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen also, and five hundred she-asses, and a very great household; and that man was great among all the men of the East (Job 1:3).

And if he was made a partaker of this grace only then, when, having lost all his possessions, deprived also of his whole household and children, and stricken with a most grievous sore from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head, he scraped his festering matter with a potsherd, sitting on the dunghill (Job 2:7), was he afterward recalled to the image of exaltation and temptation, when, his bodily health being renewed, he became again the father of seven sons and three daughters, and was enriched with a doubled increase in his whole substance (Job 42:10, 13)?

But far be from the minds of the faithful so irreligious a persuasion, that it should be believed of any of the saints, to whom God has bestowed both riches and honors, that either opulence or dignity hindered him from grasping the merit of true humility; since to them both proved profitable for advancement in this virtue. For although the whole life of man is a temptation upon the earth (Job 7:1, according to the LXX), and both abundance and want are wont to be the material of sin — since the rich man is exalted to pride, or the poor man breaks forth into complaint — nevertheless there have existed in every age, and even in our own age they are not wanting, both good poor and good rich, as there are good poor. Nor did the blessed apostle Paul admonish Timothy in vain, saying:

Charge them who are rich in this age not to be high-minded, nor to hope in the uncertainty of riches, but in God, who gives us all things abundantly to enjoy; to do good, to become rich in good works, to give easily, to communicate, to lay up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come, that they may lay hold on the true life (1 Tim. 6:17, 19). That this indeed comes to pass in the whole Church, which is spread throughout the whole world, is not doubtful; and that the poor of Christ are sustained not only by the resources of those who, that they might follow the Lord more unencumbered, stripped themselves at once of all their wealth, but that to the same work the substance also of those men ministers who,

preside over their possessions in no other way than as over the goods of the poor, and serve the ecclesiastical benefit under a kind of stewardship, each laboring according to the measure of his strength, that the things necessary for the food and clothing of God's family may be contributed; and at the same time taking care that in their own households, under a just and holy governance, kindness may cherish all and discipline may restrain all: as the Apostle says: If any man has not care of his own, and especially of those of his household, he has denied the faith, and is worse than an unbeliever (1 Tim. 5:8). CHAPTER VI. That all the sons of holy Church, unequal in other respects, are made equal by humility alone.

— Since therefore the Church of God, which is the body of Christ, is so woven together with manifold variety, that even things which are not equal concur into one comeliness; and out of every kind of men, of every rank of offices, of every measure of works, of every quality of virtues, there is made an inseparable connection and undifferentiated beauty of the whole edifice; nor is that wanting to the solidity which was not wanting to the portion; and there is there so great a peace and so great a concord that what belongs to all cannot but belong also to individuals — it appears without doubt that there is a certain uniting virtue, by which the manifold unity and precious diversity of the saints is confederated with itself and sounds in harmony.

But this virtue is true humility, which among whatever degrees of merit can never be dissimilar to itself. For in the alternation of offices, and in the gentleness of meekness, and in the choice of voluntary poverty, much distance is found, and one is greater or less than another in the devotion of his purpose; but in true humility nothing is divided, and nothing is not solid; and therefore it makes all its sharers one, because it itself does not admit of inequality. CHAPTER VII. That true humility consists in the perfect and entire confession of grace. — The proper nature of this good, then, is in the confession of the grace of God, which is wholly rejected unless it is wholly received.